Three artisans and a textile enterprise from Assam have earned the nation's highest handloom honours — and Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma wants every thread of that achievement acknowledged. On 7 August 2026, Sarma took to X to congratulate the recipients after President Droupadi Murmu presented them with the Sant Kabir Handloom Awards and National Handloom Awards 2025 at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The Assam names on the national honours list

The awardees celebrated by the Chief Minister are Runima Chetiya Choudhury, Jyoti Bhuyan, Riti Doley, and the enterprise M/S Marvella Associates. Their recognition spans the Sant Kabir Handloom Awards — instituted by the Ministry of Textiles to honour outstanding weavers and artisans — and the National Handloom Awards, which recognise excellence in design, weaving, and marketing across India's handloom sector. Sarma wrote: 'Every thread you weave carries a piece of Assam's identity. Today, the entire State celebrates you.'

Assam's weaving tradition and its national footprint

Assam carries one of India's richest handloom legacies, built around eri, muga, and pat silk — textiles that have earned geographical indication tags and command premium markets. The state's weavers have periodically drawn national recognition through central awards administered by the Ministry of Textiles, and successive state governments have worked to align local artisan clusters with national programmes for market access and welfare support. Each award cycle reinforces that this is not a fading craft — it is a living, competitive industry.

President Murmu, the first woman from a tribal community to hold India's highest constitutional office, presiding over these awards carries its own resonance: a recognition of craft traditions that are inseparable from the country's indigenous and community identities.

What the recognition signals for Assam's cultural economy

For Assam, national handloom honours are more than ceremonial. They feed directly into the state's cultural economy — boosting the visibility of GI-tagged products, attracting buyers at national handloom expos, and strengthening the case for expanded cluster-development funding. Chief Ministers publicly amplifying individual artisans' achievements at Rashtrapati Bhavan functions has become an established pattern, one that keeps the handloom sector visible in political and policy conversations alike.

The four Assam awardees now join a lineage of weavers who have carried the state's identity onto the national stage — one loom, one pattern, one award at a time.